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Yeah.  Your problems usually end when you move out and start paying your own freight.  Amazingly enough, your parents get a whole lot smarter right about then, too.

No one has ever figured out why that is.

Get a new drummer? 

Alan Holdsworth.

In American politics, candidates will use any method they can to get their face and message in front of the electorate.  We don't have state funding for elections, so each candidate has to raise their own money.    This leads to lots of them using things like facebook and mySpace, as it's cheap, and reaches a lot of people.

Excellent idea.  I'd also add a "A person with 0 posts may not start a new thread" rule.

He spent the night in the poke on a couple of occasions.  He also started a forest fire once, and got sued by the federal government over it.

But no prison.

Johnny Cash was a hard living guy, but he never spent any time in prison.  That's a myth.

You're stealing, no matter how super secret you keep it.

No.  I'm an engineer and I make my living because of intellectual property rights protections.

Old Doll,

I firmly believe that there are really only two churches on Earth.  There is the Church of God, which is made of those who seek God, and the Church of Power, which is made of those who seek power and control.  There is nothing else.

Zurf,

Thank you for a thoughtful response, but it doesn't answer the question.  "Who's criteria?"  You say it isn't up to you to judge, but that is exactly what you've done, answering the question in a not so direct manner.  It's Zurf's criteria.  To be a Christian, one must simply profess their faith in Christ.  The Mormons do that, and are by every definition a Christian organization.   

The Bible is just a book, written by men for their own ends.   It has no more or less claim on the truth than the Book for Mormon, or the Perl of Great Price, or the Doctrine and Covenants, or the Bhagavad Ghita, or the Quran,  for that matter.   Scripture does not define truth.  It is just a reflection of the truth in the world.   The true word of the Creator is written directly into the creation.

I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think eliminating that tax break would produce the end you want.  What that would do is legitimize the political church.  Now, those political groups masquerading as churches at least have to show some pretense at being a religious organization.  Take away that tax break, and they are now tax paying organizations with a right to lobby, just like everyone else.  It's an invitation for them to legitimize their political operations.

What we need is much stricter tax exemption enforcement of the existing law.